Title

Attorney General No.

SA87RF0038

Secretary of State No.

426

Description

ACQUIRED IMMUNE DEFICIENCY SYNDROME (AIDS) REPORTING. INITIATIVE STATUTE. Requires doctors, blood banks, and others, to report patients and blood donors, whom they reasonably believe to have been infected by or tested positive for AIDS, to local health officers. Requires self-reporting by persons infected or tested positive. Directs local health officers to notify reported person's spouse, sexual partners, and others possibly exposed. Creates felony for persons with knowledge of infection or positive test to donate blood. Imposes fines and penalties for unauthorized disclosure of AIDS test results. Authorizes employees to wear protective clothing to avoid exposure to AIDS. Contains other provisions. Summary of estimate by Legislative Analyst and Director of Finance of fiscal impact on state and local governments: The fiscal impact is unknown. It could be as high as tens or hundreds of millions of dollars depending on whether or not the number of persons who test positive increases significantly, the types of measures determined to be "reasonably necessary" to prevent further spread of the epidemic, the costs for investigating cases, and the extent to which insurance companies and employers will attempt to shift health care costs to public programs by using AIDS testing to determine insurability or employability of individuals.